Posted on 12/13/2016 6:25:18 AM PST by Enlightened1
Some in Washington and others on social media are speculating that President-elect Trump is on the cusp of a tidal wave of "faithless electors" defecting from their pledges.
The notion is provocative, titillating — and has no root in reality and is nothing new.
Anti-Trump forces are advancing efforts to invalidate his election in the only venue that matters: the Electoral College. The electors of the Electoral College — the people who actually choose the next president — will gather on Dec. 19 to make their choices; choices that are supposed to represent the will of the voters of the 50 sovereign states.
When the Electoral College meets on Dec. 19th in each separate state, there may be some defectors, but that tradition is nearly as old as our republic, and Trump's electoral majority is simply too large for a faithless-elector rebellion to cause him to lose the election.
"A faithless elector is someone who breaks their promise and votes for someone else," said Paul Sracic, a political science professor at Youngstown University and expert on the electoral process.
"There are different ways of counting faithless electors, but using a fairly liberal definition yields 157 faithless electors throughout our history," he said.
"While it is not that uncommon to have one faithless elector, those who oppose Trump would need 37 faithless electors to deny Trump the majority demanded by the Constitution," said Sracic.
The most recent faithless elector occurred in Minnesota in 2004, when an anonymous elector cast a vote for John Edwards, and not John Kerry, for president.
It is not clear whether this was intentional.
(Excerpt) Read more at washingtonexaminer.com ...
One John is as good as another - say the hookers.
It’s beyond absurd to think 35 more EVers will change their votes.
If it were ANY of us on this board, WHAT Would it take to change your vote?
There’s your answer.
The only Trump "faithless elector" I know about is that guy from Texas. The other ones we are hearing about are in blue states and were slated to vote for Crooked Hillary all along. If they go rogue, it does not affect Trump one bit.
So unless the Texas GOP can do something about this one elector, Trump will receive 305 electoral votes on Monday and this whole chapter will be over.
Maybe that is why I consider this whole thing about “will trump really be president” just high entertainment. I’ve been through too many election cycles. This is going nowhere.
And even if they were able to stop him from becoming president, it would just mean a third american revolution, the civil war being the second one. I put my faith in Christ, not man. This whole thing is just a distraction within the “video game” in which we all live. Reality (the afterlife) and what leads to it is what really matters.
It’s also outing the entire progressive movement as a bunch of whiny boobs.
Other than the flake from Texas, I’d be surprised if any other elector switches votes.
January 6th congress meets and at that time objections to any electoral college votes can be raised. Congress has the power to ignore those objections or vote to nullify the vote in question.
i see what you did there:)
I'd be surprised if electors bound to vote for Hillary didn't instead vote for Trump.
Electors are hardcore Repubs who will vote the Party or never be welcome in the Party again let alone their states. Not going to happen.
Pray America woke
I'd be surprised if electors bound to vote for Hillary didn't instead vote for Trump.
Actually, there's a couple of them in Colorado bound to Hillary who say they want to vote for Trump.
The Trump folks ain't stupid (or they wouldn't have beaten team Clinton), you can bet that they have been on the phone with the party chairs and probably even the delegates themselves in every state Trump won just to verify there will be no problems next Monday, and inviting any elector that seems to be wavering to an all expense paid trip to Trump tower for some wining and dining.
Bob beckel spewed this bilge in December of 2000, also
For the same reason...
Dems are threatening electors. That’s a bigger problem than the Russian “hacking”.
With all the electors personal information listed by politico for the DNC machine to fuel their members threat/pleading campaign to try to convince electors to vote rogue. I would think an elector would be concerned about some backlash from their state citizens if they vote against the voters mandate from Nov 8.
I'd be surprised if electors bound to vote for Hillary didn't instead vote for Trump.
While I don't think that will happen either, at least there could be some rationale for it.
Excessive numbers of early voters could not have taken Comey's comments into account before casting their votes. Therefore, it would make more sense for a "faithless elector" to consider transferring their vote from Hillary to Trump because the people they represent didn't have access to all the information when they voted.
Again, neither one is going to happen but electors abandoning Hillary at least has some sense to it.
Turnabout is fair play - 50 Dem electors vote their conscience - Bernie Sanders
Yeah they’d get even bigger threats for trying to create a civil war
Correct, but if they wanted to see what a second revolution was about, that would do it.
I expect objections to be raised on Jan 6, as two democrat reps have announced that the EC should not vote for Trump. It only takes one rep and one senator to make the objection. I’m guessing the senator will be Al Franken or Kamala Harris.
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